Last month we wrote about Hilton Honors campaign allowing their Diamond members to nominate a person of their choice to either Gold or Diamond status depending on the amount of nights they spent in 2020.
Many members including myself never got the invitation email to do so until the deadline of January 31, 2021 so I decided to chase it up with Hilton and then gift the status to one of my friends.
You can read up on the status nomination through the article John wrote in early December.
Gift Hilton Honors Elite Status to a loved one. To thank its most elite members for their continued loyalty this season, Hilton Honors is extending a one-time special gift to its global Diamond and Lifetime Diamond members.
Beginning next week until January 31, 2021, these elite members will be able to gift status for one year to a family member or friend. Typically, the Elite Status Gifting benefit is reserved for members who complete a standard, annual night requirement.
Diamond members will receive an email with instructions on how to gift Gold status and Lifetime Diamond members will be able to gift Diamond status. For members who earned Status Gifting through their 2020 nights, this is an extra opportunity to gift to someone new.
The nomination requires a unique code which can only be obtained from Hilton.
I first contacted the Hilton Diamond Desk to ask about my code and why I didn’t receive the email.
They referred me to request the code through the following email:
Priorityletter@hilton.com
They also informed me that for whatever reason my profile showed to not receive any marketing emails from Hilton Honors or their partners which was likely the reason I never received this code or any account statements for a rather long period. I definitely never selected this but it is now fixed.
After contacting the Priorityletter email it took roughly two weeks for them to reply and give me the code:
Dear Sebastian,
We are honored that you have chosen to make memories with us over the years as a Diamond member.
In order to gift Gold status for one year to another member, please share the link and claim code below. The claim code can be used only once and is valid until 31 January 2021.
Landing page
https://www.hiltonhonors.com/en_US/gift-status-hilton-gold/claim-code-entry/
Claim code: XXXXXXWe all need a little cheer this year, and what better way than to share future travel memories with your loved ones when they are ready to travel again.
Wishing you a happy holiday season.Best regards,
Sara L.
I had two friends in mind who could use this status, one said he won’t be doing any traveling this year that involves Hilton but the other currently stays a lot in hotels here in Thailand and is likely to make good use of this.
I logged in to his existing (new) account after entering the code in order to link everything. Following this it took about 5 hours for the Gold status to show up.
Hilton Gold is a very solid status especially for people who don’t stay at hotels a lot. It comes with decent upgrades, free breakfast and often hotels also give Club access even though that’s not officially part of the status.
Remember that if you’re eligible to gift this status it has to be done until January 31, 2021
Conclusion
This is a nice gesture from Hilton to extend allow all Diamond members to gift Gold and lifetime Diamonds a Diamond without meeting the official criteria. Diamonds with 100 night last year were also able to gift Diamond status. I only had 34 nights so I could only gift Gold.
Hilton likely hopes these newly gifted Gold and Diamond-status members to book at least some stays in 2021 which will continue to be a very slow year for the hotel industry.
